98 



" Trichocera brumalis. The Mid-winter Trichocera. 



" Brownish black ; wings and legs pallid at their bases ; poisers blackish, their pe- 

 dicels whitish. 



" Length of the male 0.1 tf, of the female 0.25 ; the wings expanding twice these 

 measurements. 



" Common in forests in the winter season, coming out on warm days, flying in the 

 sunshine, and alighting on the snow, its wings reposing horizontally upon its back 

 when at rest. Even when the temperature is below the freezing point, and the cold 

 so severe as to confine every other insect within its coverts, this may be met with 

 abroad upon the wing. It is a plain, unadorned species, closely allied in its characters 

 and habits to the European T. hyemalis, but in a number of impaled specimens before 

 me, I can detect no stripes or bands upon the thorax ; whilst the very obvious charac- 

 ter of the legs and wings being pallid at their bases, I do not find mentioned as per- 

 taining to that species. 



" Podura Nivicola. ' The Snow-flea.' 



" Black or blue-black ; legs and tail dull brown. 



" Length 0.08. 



" Though found in the same situations as the European P. nivalis, ours is a much 

 darker coloured species. Say's P. bicolor is a larger insect than the one under 

 consideration, and differs also in size and in the colour of the tail or spring. From 

 the habits of the present species, we should infer that it might be abundant in all the 

 snow-clad regions of the northern parts of this continent; it may therefore prove to be 

 identical with the P. humicola of Otho Fabricius (' Fauna Grcenlandica '), of which 

 we are unable to refer to any but short and unsatisfactory descriptions, which do not 

 coincide well with our insect. 



" This is an abundant species in our forests in the winter and fore part of spring. 

 At any time in the winter, whenever a few days of mild weather occur, the surface of 

 the snow, often over whole acres of wood-land, may be found sprinkled more or less 

 thickly with these minute fleas, looking, at first sight, as though gunpowder had been 

 there scattered. Hollows and holes in the snow, out of which the insects are unable 

 to throw themselves readily, are often black with the multitudes which here become 

 imprisoned. The fine meal-like powder with which their bodies are coated, enables 

 them to float buoyantly upon the surface of water, without becoming wet. When the 

 snow is melting so as to produce small rivulets coursing along the tracks of the hus- 

 bandman's sleigh, these snow-fleas are often observed, floating passively in its current, 

 in such numbers as to form continuous strings ; whilst the eddies and still pools ga- 

 ther them in such myriads as to wholly hide the element beneath them." 



Mr. S. Stevens stated that Mr. Walton had had the kindness to determine the 

 names of the two new British Curculioniclse he had recently captured. That from 

 Gravesend he had no doubt was the Mecinus collaris of Germar, for it answered ex- 

 actly to Germar's description ; the other from Fenny Stratford is Acalyptus rufipennis 

 of Schonherr. Of this, Mr. Walton in a note, observes : — " The genus Acalyptus, 

 Schonherr states, is not very dissimilar to Sibynia, and is partly like Tychius, but dif- 

 fers in the construction of the funiculus of the antennae and in the form of the rostrum. 

 The location of the genus is next to Sibynia. Schonherr records only two species in 

 the genus, viz., A. Carpini, Herbst., and A. rufipennis ; but I am of opinion that Car- 



